


Of Raging Tempests and Safe Harbors

by PhoenixFalls



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Introspection, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFalls/pseuds/PhoenixFalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's time --  past time, really -- for Amarante to do her year of service in the Temple of Naamah. Sidonie holds a private vigil; she has a decision to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Raging Tempests and Safe Harbors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marlowe_tops](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marlowe_tops/gifts).



> I really, really wanted to write an epic Amarante/Sidonie canon-divergent AU, but unfortunately I had neither the time nor enough of an idea of how to alter _Kushiel's Mercy_ for this pairing. I hope this snapshot of the moment of divergence satisfies nonetheless!

I have never felt Blessed Elua’s mantle envelope me. Mother has; she told Alais and I of it once, late of an evening one long winter during our childhood, when we had received word that Father was ill across the Strait. She told us how it filled her with a golden light, dazzling her senses, leaving the taste of honey on her tongue; how she knew that she was being called home, that Elua’s city would welcome her no matter what lies traitors had spun for it. How she felt that grace and knew, for the first time, the true vastness of his love.

Whether because of my station or because of my Cruithne blood, I do not love as easily as most D’Angelines seem to. I love Mother and Father, and aspire to rule as wisely as they both have when that day comes. I love Alais, and wish I could do more to protect her from the world, which has very few unreservedly happy paths to offer her. I loved Élodie, my very first nurse, and still grieve her loss to the Bitterest Winter.

I love Terre d’Ange. How could I not?

But beyond that, I have rarely felt my heart stir for those around me. I feel desire, of course, for a pretty face or a lithe body in movement, but there is a kernel of truth to the muttering about ice water in my veins. Love seems to require a vulnerability I simply can not display to most of the D’Angelines playing at the Game of Courtship, familiar as I am with the ways their parents play politics in deadly earnest.

I tried to love Maslin de Lombelon, delightfully blunt and loyal to his core the way only the son of a traitor need be. His parentage would have been a problem had I tried to make him my Consort – both for the treachery and the bastardry – but he would have been acceptable as a lover, as the Captain of my Guard. Unfortunately, we brought out the worst in each other, the confidences we had shared as friends wielded as weapons in my bedroom.

I felt the pull of my cousin Imriel, another traitor’s get, and one who would never be acceptable to the court (or Mother) in my bed in any fashion. On the Longest Night I gave in to that pull, let Amarante and Mavros arrange a moment in darkness for us, for a kiss that thrilled me to my core. But in the clear light of morning I knew that too much of what was between us was the lure of the forbidden, and when I tried to envision us laughing together, as Imriel and Alais so often did, (as Amarante and I do), I could not. All I could see was the years I had lost to mistrusting him, the slights and the hurts I had inflicted because I had failed to examine closely enough the prejudices of those around me.

That was my failure, one of my earliest and still one of my largest, and I knew it would lie always between us. One day, perhaps, Imriel and I could be friends; but a secret affair was not the ideal method by which to accomplish that.

No one else mattered to me in any way I recognized as love. No one else filled me up, dazzled me; no one else’s kisses tasted of honey.

No one, save for Amarante.

Amarante who, upon being presented to me for the first time, had grinned up at me with those cat-eyes, licked her lips, and said simply: “Highness, I think we shall have a great deal of fun together.”

Amarante, who taught me how to take joy in my body, by sneaking me a pair of breeches and showing me how to lead in a midnight dance around my quarters, then undressing me and making love to every inch of my skin. I have kept that memory close, and ever since my stride has been freer under my court dress for my time spent less encumbered. 

Amarante, who has never treated me as anything more or less than simply myself – not the manipulable heir to the throne, not the half-breed disappointment, not the untouchable ice queen, neither pawn nor threat nor statue on a pedestal, just Sidonie, a woman with a head full of trivia about history, geography, languages, and a heart slow to trust but fiercely loyal.

Amarante, who is everything I want for the rest of my life, but who can never give me an heir, and who deserves so much more than the life I can give her.

And so I knelt, late into the night in the courtyard of the palace shrine to Elua, wrapped warmly against the chill but shivering nonetheless, and trying to open my heart to any guidance my god has to offer.

What was the path of the greatest love? Was it to ask Amarante to repudiate the oath she took as an acolyte in Naamah’s temple, give up her dreams of priesthood to become my Consort? To ask her to spend all her days entangled by the political machinations that have bedeviled me since my birth, instead of the communion with Naamah that is her birthright? 

Was it love to do this despite knowing that someday I would have to light a candle to Eisheth and take a D’Angeline man of impeccable lineage as a lover, so that the Courcel line may continue unbroken? To ask Amarante to raise the child of that union with me, and watch alongside me as our child is subject to suspicion not only for his or her Cruithne blood, but also for his or her illegitimacy? Was it love to put my realm through the turmoil that would result from these decisions? 

Or was the path of the greatest love letting Amarante go? Keeping her as friend and sometime lover, but leaving her free to pursue her own destiny in service to Naamah, and letting my love of Terre d’Ange guide me to some man who would be at least moderately acceptable as Consort and father of my heir to both the Court and to myself? Surely, somewhere in my realm such a man existed, though by now I was entirely certain he was not a member of the Peerage.

I knelt, and I prayed, and I listened to the night around me, the rustle of wind through the trees, the soft chirping of a thrush. Nothing happened, except that my knees grew numb and the courtyard eventually lightened with the oncoming dawn. When the first rays of sunlight hit my face I sighed and stood, stretching out the ache in my back.

Warm arms slid round my waist from behind, hands catching mine and twining our fingers together. A lock of curly copper hair was blown over my shoulder by the breeze and I smiled and turned in her arms to give Amarante the kiss of greeting.

When we pulled apart she was smiling too, but her eyes were solemn. “Did you find the answer to your question, Sidonie?”

And only then, looking into my love’s eyes, did I know. It was a realization that came not with Elua’s golden light but with Naamah’s grace settling warmly about me like a cloak. I could not let her go.

I clung to Amarante, burying my face in the crook of her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin. My voice shook.

“Will you stay?”

Amarante brought her hands up to tangle them in my hair, then pulled my head back enough to meet my eyes.

“Of course. Always. You only ever had to ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> As you might have noticed, I took the liberty of moving up the point when Sidonie and Maslin actually go to bed together. I felt it worked better that way, for the purposes of this AU.
> 
> The title, of course, comes from what Amarante says in _Kushiel's Justice_ : "Love's not always a raging tempest, Imriel. It can be a safe harbor too."


End file.
